Beginning Character Concept Work
I am going to be honest, I don’t think I’ve been quite as excited for any assignment thus far as I am for this week. I love designing characters and creating creatures so much, so being given such a great opportunity like this will NOT be taken for granted. It’s such a great honor to be the first person in the production line for designing and refining these characters main features and I really hope to capture the image of the game with my work. Just for fun, I’m going to throw in some concept art I made on my own time for personal reasons, as it is my favorite kind of work!
Working loosely and not having to worry about perfect lines is honestly the best. For me, defining the biggest, most integral features of a character are more important that clean lines and a refined style. In addition, working in only black and white creates a good restriction so that one can focus on values before trying to piece together an appealing color scheme. I took a similar approach to the designing process of the two main characters for SNAK3, which I will talk about below.
Romeo and Julian
For the main character, Romeo, I was given this description to work with:
Main Character (black teenager, forager/hunter, worn clothing, slightly effeminate male body).
So, I looked at the pre-existing sprite work and documentation, and came up with two possible designs. Granted, I was under the impression that one had been a child and the other an adult, so excuse the drastic change in height and style.
Turns out that even though the character is an adult, the first iteration of the design is much closer to the intended image of the game. I will continue refining that design and eventually adding proper rendering to it once all of the other characters are blocked in.
The description for the prince I was provided is as follows:
Prince (effeminate male body) – Black, bleach blonde straightened hair – dress, tiara, rings on fingers, nose piercing – wearing pumps.
This design was a bit trickier for me, especially without having an understanding to the lore/ cultural influences of the world. I made plenty of iterations and changes, eventually resulting with this. None of these designs are final, but rather just explorations here.
Media
I finished watching the Venture Bros.! I’m surprised I never got into the show sooner, as the animation in the later seasons becomes extremely clean and fast-paced, and the twists the show takes are always SO GOOD. I also recently found out that a movie is in production for HBOMax to supplement there being no season 8, as the show was cancelled right after a major cliff-hanger. Anyway, if you like Adult Swim shows, I’d recommend checking it out.
Also this week, I found out about the Elden Ring Character creator and I am really excited! It’s a refined version of the one seen in Dark Souls III, but cleaner and with just the same amount of wacky customization options. I’m probably gonna spend an entire day in the character customizer when the game drops, but it genuinely looks so amazing.
